those
instructions sent him to a fashionable tailor that very afternoon. With
some difficulty he prevailed on this worthy to make him a dress-suit in
twenty-four hours. Next day he introduced himself to the London trade,
showed his carving-tools, and, after a hard day's work, succeeded in
obtaining several orders.

Then he bought some white ties and gloves and an opera hat, and had his
hair cut in Bond Street.

At seven he got his clothes at the tailor's, and at eight he was in the
stalls of the opera. His mother had sent him there, to note the dress
and public deportment of gentlemen and ladies, and use his own judgment.
He found his attention terribly distracted by the music and the raptures
it caused him; but still he made some observations; and, consequently,
next day he bought some fashionable shirts and sleeve studs and ribbon
ties; ordered a morning suit of the same tailor, to be sent to him at
Hillsborough; and after canvassing for customers all day, telegraphed
his mother, and reached Hillsborough at eleven P.M.

At first sight of him Mrs. Little exclaimed:

"Oh! What have you done with your beautiful hair?"

He laughed, and said this was the fashion.

"But it is like a private soldier."

"Exactly. Part of the Volunteer movement, perhaps."

"Are you sure it is the fashion, dear?"

"Quite sure. All the swells in the opera were bullet-headed just like
this."

"Oh, if it is the fashion!" said Mrs. Little; and her mind succumbed
under that potent word.

She asked him about the dresses of the ladies in the opera.

His description was very lame. He said he didn't know he was expected to
make notes of them.

"Well, but you might be sure I should like to know. Were there no ladies
dressed as you would like to see your mother dressed?"

"Good heavens, no! I couldn't fancy you in a lot of colors; and your
beautiful head deformed into the shape of a gourd, with a beast of a
chignon stuck out behind, made of dead hair."

"No matter. Mr. Henry; I wish I had been with you at the opera. I should
have seen something or other that would have become me." She gave a
little sigh.

He was not to come home to dinner that day, but stay at the works, till
she sent for him.

At six o'clock, Jael Dence came for him in a fly, and told him he was to
go home with her.

"All right," said he; "but how did you come there?"

"She bade me come and see her again--that day I brought the bust. So I
went to see her, and I